‘Bollocks.’
A milky white puddle fans out across the floor. She doesn’t move as it begins to lap at her feet. Watching the carton of oat milk empty.
Blug. Glug.
It’s now 5am in the little Co-op down the road and the harsh lighting reflects off her glasses, seemingly soulless, with her zombie movements, milky feet. It’s empty.
An employee is tidying the end of the aisle, stacking the bara brith into a pyramid. She hears the disgruntled noises, such gentle carnage, coming from the milk section and lifts to watch.
The hooded girl lifts her slippered foot to move the carton out of the way. The milky mess only gets bigger, like a white bloodstain on the tiles. They share a moment, eyes locked, hers wild in the headlights of their stare.
Bending down simultaneously, they manage to touch hands - or do they? Is it all imagined as the onesie girl pinches the bridge of her nose, shying away from the contact? When she opens her eyes the floor is…clean?
‘What the fuck?’
The employee girl is standing with a bouquet of blue roll, sodden with milk. She’s so pale, but her cheeks colour a little.
‘Quick cleaner. Got a badge.’ She points a thumb at the collar of her shirt. ‘Are you alright?’
She's sitting on the floor, disorientated. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lights doing havoc with her eyes again. Been on her laptop one too many late nights at the library. Never did get that essay on Bates and the power of the matriarchy finished…
Employee walks over to the counter and dumps the tissues. She comes back to her and crouches on the floor.
She is close enough to Employee’s chest to read the nametag.
‘Ceri?’
It comes out like a question, but really she’s just mindlessly reading. What a pretty name.
But Ceri forgets herself and the nametag for a moment.
‘How did you know…’
The penny drops.
Ceri laughs.
‘Suppose it’s only fair that I get to know your name now since, you know, you ruined the floor and all.’
‘Erm, Milly,’
She blushes, looking down. Her glasses slide down her nose.
‘Well it’s really Millicent but that’s my grandma’s name and she’s a bit of a…’
Her hands make a shape, twisting against the words.
‘Dick?’
‘Yeah. I guess.’
There’s a silence. Milly looks back up at Ceri.
‘I better get some coffee..’
‘Aisle three. Shall I walk you there to make sure there are no other casualties? Any more drama this early in the morning and I think I’ll have to escort you off the premises.’
Ceri winks at her. She walks back down the aisle to the display and continues to stack. Milly stares at her, until Ceri looks up. The spell is broken somehow and there’s a cloud of general embarrassment - in the confusion of their meeting, Milly completely forgets to buy anything and hurries out of the Co-op into the soggy morning.
Ah, welsh rain again. Walking home alone, again.
*
And I feel like I’m falling again, in depths of the sea at your lighthouse but you weren’t there to man the light. Flickers and echoes yet now you’re watching me fade into night.
I want to be here. I want to be alive. Bracing myself for reality, brace to survive in the cold. Hoping it’s all going to be okay.
The clock shows the same time. Another day of supermarket trips, crying between the aisles ‘then’ and ‘now’. Oh these fluorescent lights and my blood-shot eyes show that I am coping so well.
As my hair turns from blonde to brown, my cells shed into another woman, I know you’ve found yourself the prom queen, a girl unafraid of the heights of your pedestal - this whole time you merely thought me a fool. I know what happened that summer when you didn’t call.
Walking home alone again, trying to take back my life from the romantic comedy narrative, deleting paragraphs from my story so that I’m not asked anymore how we’re doing. Because you and I are not a ‘we’ like before. Past tense: you and I are no more.
*
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